SB 18-16: Federal Minimum Wage Policy Act (Debating)
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 29, 2024, 03:34:54 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  Atlas Fantasy Elections
  Atlas Fantasy Government (Moderators: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee, Lumine)
  SB 18-16: Federal Minimum Wage Policy Act (Debating)
« previous next »
Pages: 1 [2] 3
Author Topic: SB 18-16: Federal Minimum Wage Policy Act (Debating)  (Read 2433 times)
Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
North Carolina Yankee
Moderator
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 54,123
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #25 on: June 27, 2019, 03:39:04 AM »

I think the baseline currently is far too low even for rural areas and $12.50 is a fair amount. While the right likes to claim that the minimum wage increases unemployment, the evidence does not give it nearly the clarity they claim and there seem to be little to no employment impacts, while boosting the incomes if millions-this is socially and economically beneficial. It's time people are paid wages they can live on and this is a key step that we should take as a nation with few risks and many benefits-I strongly endorse this bill and believe it is an eminently reasonable approach.

The impact is mostly in terms of the lower minimum wages though and yes I think there is a certain capacity for raising it with minimal impacts. However there are always impacts, one is that smaller business are disadvantage compared to big business and another is that some area are impacted more than others because standards of living differ.

I realize that the right likes to talk about it yes and the left comes back with no evidence of impact, I think both are out of touch to some extent. I think there is a space where you can raise the minimum wage with no net negatives, certainly from $7.15 obviously, but that diminishes the higher it gets.
Logged
Pericles
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 17,066


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #26 on: June 27, 2019, 03:45:50 AM »

I think the baseline currently is far too low even for rural areas and $12.50 is a fair amount. While the right likes to claim that the minimum wage increases unemployment, the evidence does not give it nearly the clarity they claim and there seem to be little to no employment impacts, while boosting the incomes if millions-this is socially and economically beneficial. It's time people are paid wages they can live on and this is a key step that we should take as a nation with few risks and many benefits-I strongly endorse this bill and believe it is an eminently reasonable approach.

The impact is mostly in terms of the lower minimum wages though and yes I think there is a certain capacity for raising it with minimal impacts. However there are always impacts, one is that smaller business are disadvantage compared to big business and another is that some area are impacted more than others because standards of living differ.

I realize that the right likes to talk about it yes and the left comes back with no evidence of impact, I think both are out of touch to some extent. I think there is a space where you can raise the minimum wage with no net negatives, certainly from $7.15 obviously, but that diminishes the higher it gets.

It isn't being raised $5 it is a much smaller raise due to the Atladian situation and given the points I have raised and how even this minimum wage is below many living wages and is just a first step to finally getting wages on track with living wages it is responsible and the benefits outweigh the risks. There is theoretically a minimum wage increase that would cause more harm than benefit but this is not it, no where close, it is reasonable and necessary, Atlasian workers need higher wages and the current system simply does not do enough.
Logged
Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
North Carolina Yankee
Moderator
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 54,123
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #27 on: June 27, 2019, 03:51:26 AM »

Look I get it, I work just above that level right now. The thing to remember though is it is easy to go with a blanket action that helps generally, but in the process harms a number of people unnecessarily when compared to the possibilities of a more contextual approach.
Logged
Devout Centrist
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 10,102
United States


Political Matrix
E: -99.99, S: -99.99

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #28 on: June 27, 2019, 11:09:58 AM »

Ultimately, this debate boils down to one question: does increasing the minimum wage cost people their jobs or hours at work? The evidence indicates that modest minimum wage increases do not tend to reduce employment or hours worked by the poorest workers. This working paper from the NBER studied 138 minimum wage increases from 1979 to 2016. It's a long paper, and if you want to examine their methodology, I recommend you turn to page 90 and after. Here's the gist of their conclusions:

Quote
We find that the overall number of low-wage jobs remained essentially unchanged over the five years following the increase. At the same time, the direct effect of the minimum wage on average earnings was amplified by modest wage spillovers at the bottom of the wage distribution.

Other papers suggest that larger minimum wage increases may not lead to higher unemployment.

But why is this the case? Econ 101 would suggest that any increase in the minimum wage would create a price floor, causing a surplus of workers; in effect, creating unemployment. Well, there's several problems with this simplistic model. This model assumes that the factors of production can freely move around in the economy. Labor, being a factor of production, is easily transferred around in this model. One reason why unemployment does not increase after a minimum wage hike is labor demand inelasticity. An inelastic labor demand curve would see less of an impact from a minimum wage increase, as it would be less responsive to a change in prices. By contrast, an elastic labor demand curve would see a big impact, as it would be very responsive to any change in prices.

Current research indicates that labor is more inelastic than previously thought. However, it also indicates unskilled workers have a more elastic demand curve than their skilled counterparts. This would match up with current research. Modest minimum wage increases tend to not increase unemployment; above a certain threshold, unskilled workers bear the burnt of job losses.

This bill would increase the existing minimum wage by 10%, making it a rather modest increase.This article from NPR dissects some of the nuances of the issue at play.

Given that this bill would increase the minimum wage by an incremental amount, there should not be a significant concern about job losses or hours being cut, even in rural areas. When minimum wage increases are done incrementally, businesses have more time to adjust their expectations and 'price in' the effects of an increase.
Logged
Devout Centrist
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 10,102
United States


Political Matrix
E: -99.99, S: -99.99

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #29 on: June 29, 2019, 12:47:59 PM »

So it appears we're at an impasse. Hm. I will reiterate that this bill will only increase an existing Federal minimum wage by quite a modest amount. Are we really wringing our hands over a dollar increase to an existing Federal minimum?
Logged
fhtagn
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 12,521
Vatican City State


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #30 on: June 29, 2019, 01:13:49 PM »

So it appears we're at an impasse. Hm. I will reiterate that this bill will only increase an existing Federal minimum wage by quite a modest amount. Are we really wringing our hands over a dollar increase to an existing Federal minimum?
What guarantees do you have that it will stop there?

Sure, a dollar sounds "modest", but it isn't when someone is trying to increase it by that amount (or more) each year.
Logged
Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
North Carolina Yankee
Moderator
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 54,123
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #31 on: June 29, 2019, 02:46:56 PM »

Is our current minimum wage indexed to inflation? I cannot remember offhand, I know it was pre-reset.
Logged
Devout Centrist
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 10,102
United States


Political Matrix
E: -99.99, S: -99.99

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #32 on: June 29, 2019, 03:01:07 PM »

Is our current minimum wage indexed to inflation? I cannot remember offhand, I know it was pre-reset.
I don't think it's been indexed to inflation since before the reset. I'd be willing to add an amendment to this bill in order to settle the question.
Logged
Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
North Carolina Yankee
Moderator
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 54,123
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #33 on: June 29, 2019, 03:39:31 PM »

Is our current minimum wage indexed to inflation? I cannot remember offhand, I know it was pre-reset.
I don't think it's been indexed to inflation since before the reset. I'd be willing to add an amendment to this bill in order to settle the question.

I would support indexing it as a substitute for it constantly being increased every year, I believe President Tmth does or at least did feel the same way on it but I would let him speak to his position on it. However, I would note that pre-reset such an index did not prevent future politicians from still trying to increase it.
Logged
Pericles
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 17,066


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #34 on: June 29, 2019, 05:36:03 PM »

I thought we passed a bill earlier this year that indexed it to inflation and this is just increasing the baseline?
Logged
Fmr. Representative Encke
Encke
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,203
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #35 on: June 29, 2019, 06:16:02 PM »

One potential problem with many recent studies is their use of difference-in-differences comparisons (along with jurisdiction or state-specific controls) to determine changes in employment. Some issues with this methodology are outlined in this 2013 paper by J. Meer and J. West:

Quote
Many recent studies of the minimum wage include state- or county-specific time trends to control for heterogeneity in the underlying time-paths by which labor markets evolve within different areas that might be correlated with treatment intensity (e.g. Page et al., 2005; Addison et al., 2009; Allegretto et al., 2011). These models generally find little or no effect of the minimum wage on employment levels. However, if the policy change affects the growth rate of the response variable, rather than its level, then specifications including jurisdictionspecific trends will mechanically attenuate estimates of the policy’s effect. The basic intuition is that including state-specific time trends as controls will adjust for two sources of variation. First, if there is any pre-treatment deviation in outcomes that is correlated with treatment – e.g. if states that exhibit stronger employment growth are also more likely to increase their minimum wage – then this confounding variation may be appropriately controlled for by including state-specific time trends. The potential cost of this added control is that if the actual treatment effect, the post-treatment employment variation, acts upon the trend itself, then inclusion of jurisdiction time trends will attenuate estimates of the treatment effect and often leads to estimating (statistical) null employment effects.

The paper moves on to discuss a separate assumption made by many recent minimum-wage papers: the assumption that an effect on employment would manifest itself as a discrete drop in employment in the short-term, rather than a longer-term decline in the growth rate.

The authors conclude:

Quote
If the minimum wage is to be evaluated alongside alternative policy instruments for increasing the standard of living of low-income households, a more conclusive understanding of its effects is necessary. The primary implication of our study is that the minimum wage does affect employment through a particular mechanism. This is important for normative analysis in theoretical models (e.g. Lee and Saez, 2012) and for policymakers weighing the tradeoffs between the increased wage for minimum wage earners and the potential reduction in hiring and employment. Moreover, we reconcile the tension between the expected theoretical effect of the minimum wage and the estimated null effect found by some researchers. We show that because minimum wages reduce employment levels through dynamic effects on employment growth, research designs incorporating state-specific time trends are prone to erroneously estimated null effects on employment. In contrast, the minimum wage significantly reduces job growth, at least in the context that we are able to analyze.

The main takeaway here is that there are a number of potential issues with the standard methodology that has been adopted by many minimum-wage papers since the 1994 Card/Krueger paper (which was when the traditional assumption that minimum wage increases have a negative effect on employment levels was first significantly challenged), and that adherence to this methodology can erroneously result in a confirmation of the null hypothesis.
Logged
Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
North Carolina Yankee
Moderator
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 54,123
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #36 on: June 29, 2019, 06:33:39 PM »

I thought so, it just seemed to good to be true that you could have minimum wage increases without slowing the long term growth rate at minimum if not outright causing unemployment to increase in select sectors. Reality has to kick in eventually as well as the competing factors like automation and technology that play a role in the mix.
Logged
Devout Centrist
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 10,102
United States


Political Matrix
E: -99.99, S: -99.99

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #37 on: June 29, 2019, 07:06:12 PM »

I will concede that there may be some dynamic effects on unemployment from a minimum wage increase, although there is not much existing literature on the subject. Nevertheless, it is a fair point of concern. This study, in particular, identifies a number of groups most at risk from a minimum wage increase. According to this study, young workers are particularly effected by a recent minimum wage increase. This bill, in its current form, provides employers an exemption for students and apprentices. These groups tend to skew towards younger workers. Now, I’m willing to propose a bill that would establish tax credits for businesses that hire young, unskilled workers. This would, at least partially, offset the effects of any changes in dynamic employment rates.

However, I must point out that, in this study, the effects on dynamic hiring are not statistically significant across all industries. For instance, there is no significant effect on the retail trade industry. There are significant effects in other industries, but not all of these are as significant as one would expect.

Regardless, this study is relevant to the discussion. I believe that the most effective policy solution would be tax credits that encourage companies to hire the most affected workers. This would alleviate any dynamic effects caused by the last increase over the past two years, and help to head off any effects from this increase.
Logged
Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
North Carolina Yankee
Moderator
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 54,123
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #38 on: July 02, 2019, 02:57:12 AM »

I would caution against presuming that about retail trade. I work for "a large retailer" and I can see automation creeping in through every door. If a study is from a few years ago or is backward looking, it might fail to catch the impacts of self-checkouts, automated truck un-loaders and robotic stock pickers.
Logged
Vern
vern1988
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 2,166
United States


Political Matrix
E: -1.30, S: -0.70

P P P

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #39 on: July 02, 2019, 07:54:38 AM »

While I do understand that there is a need to look at this issue. I just believe this is better done at an region level.
Logged
Devout Centrist
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 10,102
United States


Political Matrix
E: -99.99, S: -99.99

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #40 on: July 02, 2019, 11:50:47 AM »

There is increasing automation in all sectors of the economy. As it stands, we are on the precipice of radical change in the American workforce. Automation will upend millions of people's livelihoods and is an issue worth address. However, I believe that falls outside the scope of this bill and cannot solely be blamed on a rising minimum wage.
Logged
Pragmatic Conservative
1184AZ
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 4,735


Political Matrix
E: 3.00, S: -0.41

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #41 on: July 02, 2019, 12:03:42 PM »

There is increasing automation in all sectors of the economy. As it stands, we are on the precipice of radical change in the American workforce. Automation will upend millions of people's livelihoods and is an issue worth address. However, I believe that falls outside the scope of this bill and cannot solely be blamed on a rising minimum wage.
and by keeping on raising the minimum wage your just going to increase the incentives for businesses to automatize many of the tasks that are done by minimum wage workers. Their is a certain cost benefit ratio where it becomes cheaper over the long run to invest in automation than paying your employees (many of whom don't stay in their current minimum wage job for a long period of time meaning a near constant job search and amount of time used for training.) versus paying an ever increasing minimum wage. I am concerned we may be starting to reach that ratio with these recent proposed increases.   
Logged
Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
North Carolina Yankee
Moderator
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 54,123
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #42 on: July 02, 2019, 01:42:34 PM »

There is increasing automation in all sectors of the economy. As it stands, we are on the precipice of radical change in the American workforce. Automation will upend millions of people's livelihoods and is an issue worth address. However, I believe that falls outside the scope of this bill and cannot solely be blamed on a rising minimum wage.

Its a factor that weighs towards automation, but here is the thing. I have long been at the forefront in mapping out the political landscape and the divide over how to approach this in the future. I still think we are going to end up with a pro-trade, pro-technology democratic party that relies on redistribution to deal with displacement, basically what was done in the new deal.

And an opposition that is anti-trade, anti-immigration and anti-technology that wants to restrict automation to protect jobs and wages. You see this mentality being pushed by the likes of Tucker Carlson.

Ironically for many years the right backed the EITC as an alternative to the minimum wage until they decided that was a give away or some such bs they peddle in RL these days.

I think we need to change our approach to living wage and how that is obtained to fit within the context of the modern economy, the economy is not the same as it was in the 1930's and it would be detrimental to presume that a 1930's policy would continue to fit well within this modern context without issue.
Logged
Sestak
jk2020
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 13,268
Ukraine


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #43 on: July 02, 2019, 04:09:56 PM »

Question. Did the last minimum wage bill that actually passed index to inflation? Because if not, we should at least do that.
Logged
At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder
LouisvilleThunder
Atlas Politician
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,893
United States


Political Matrix
E: 1.55, S: 1.74

P P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #44 on: July 02, 2019, 04:20:18 PM »

I move for a final vote.
Logged
Lumine
LumineVonReuental
Moderator
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 13,610
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #45 on: July 02, 2019, 07:06:46 PM »


24 hours for objections.
Logged
Devout Centrist
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 10,102
United States


Political Matrix
E: -99.99, S: -99.99

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #46 on: July 02, 2019, 07:28:40 PM »

I object
Logged
Esteemed Jimmy
Jimmy7812
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 7,406
United States
Political Matrix
E: 2.47, S: -1.05

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #47 on: July 05, 2019, 12:58:27 PM »

A vote on whether to start a final vote has started. Please vote AYE, NAY, or ABSTAIN.
Logged
Devout Centrist
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 10,102
United States


Political Matrix
E: -99.99, S: -99.99

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #48 on: July 05, 2019, 04:29:59 PM »

Well, despite my objection, I think we've had plenty of time to debate this bill.

Aye
Logged
ON Progressive
OntarioProgressive
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 6,106
Canada


Political Matrix
E: -6.06, S: -8.70

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #49 on: July 05, 2019, 04:43:13 PM »

Aye
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.062 seconds with 12 queries.